The present invention generally relates to a device for providing bit manipulation and, more specifically, to a reconfigurable bit-manipulation node.
There are two basic varieties of bit manipulation. The first type is single bit. In single bit, each bit represents a “hard decision” or, in other words, a “1” or “0”. These individual hard decision bits are often found in the transmit portions of communications systems among many others. The second type is multi-bit or “soft decision”. Soft decision bits come in many bit widths. Soft decision is common in the receive portions of communications systems where the sampled bit is not known to be a “1” or “0” until processing has been completed.
It would be desirable to have a reconfigurable or programmable bit manipulation node that is capable of providing high performance processing for hard and soft decision data as well as the ability to implement different processing functions on bits when desired.